Ellie Potter Day
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Frank the vampire has a long standing tradition of avoiding Halloween and in recent years Ellie Potter Day for his own health and sanity; on October 31 1987 when a determined and hungry Lily Riddle arrives at the office he finds himself breaking this trend. Side fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus"


**Author's Note: A warning to those who are about to read this that this story is a side fic to the heavily AU Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus. The characters involved are OCs from that story and most of the details will be lost upon you if you don't have at least some familiarity with that fic. I highly recommend reading the main fic before this one but the choice is yours.**

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><p>October thirty first was one of those odd times of year that a vampire was never really sure what to do with himself. Of course it hadn't always been like that, in Hungary it had been much less of a meaningful date than it was in Britain; at the very least much less commercialized. In those days loitering in a village one day was just as likely to be violent and result in pitchforks and torches as any other. Things changed though and by the 1970's with the publicity and heightened awareness it just seemed a bit odd to be an actual vampire out on Halloween. Suddenly you were in the street and it was as if there was some role you were expected to play, they wanted you in a ridiculous looking cape with a Romanian accent, and when you were only in your grubby second hand clothes bought with the few galleons you didn't spend on pig's blood they looked almost insulted.<p>

The trouble was that it wasn't only the muggles who thought in this manner but the wizards as well. When Halloween had turned into national Ellie Potter Day in 1982 the problem had only grown as the drunkards celebrating the end of the war would come sprawling into Knockturn Alley with twitchy wand hands willing to light any dark thing on fire if it so much as blinked at them. Although what vampires, who were merely trying to survive and not be impaled or else run out of a country, had to do with dark magic or dark lords was entirely beyond him.

Frank had found that it was best to simply sit the night out and wait for November to hurry up and get there.

So there he had been, October 31 1987, watching cheap thrillers on the television set that Lily Riddle had installed herself long before VHS or general cable programming had been invented when the girl herself entered the room.

She always had her own unique sense of fashion, she looked impoverished, but not only that she looked muggle. Generally wearing comically oversized brightly colored clothing that was clearly second hand that simply couldn't be found anywhere in wizarding London. That night she was dressed slightly differently than her norm, she still looked poor and muggle, but her sweaters had been replaced by a white and slightly stained muscle shirt along with full length jeans replacing her shorts. Also to be noted were her bare feet and the various red stained bandages on them as well as the gun in her hand.

"Frank, I'm worried about my funding." She started immediately blocking his view of the television as she walked in, it was just as well they were in one of the portions where the woman was getting eaten and it was just making Frank vaguely hungry.

"If you haven't noticed you're the richest being in all of Britain." He said, although most wizards probably didn't know that and would assume that the Blacks and the Malfoys had the most money and perhaps even the Potters. Lily Riddle didn't exactly advertise her wealth in the traditional sense, but those who kept a close eye on the economy, such as the dark lord Voldemort and perhaps even Albus Dumbledore were well aware of the influence Riddle Incorporated had on wizarding Britain.

"No, not that funding, food funding… I mean, I suppose I could just buy my food, but really this is so much easier and it's free." She was hand gesturing rather dramatically, a sign that she had some idea in mind that was going to be realized whether anyone agreed with it or not. Such as installing a giant head at the entrance and calling it "Oz the Great and Powerful" and using it to terrify, annoy, or otherwise confuse disliked customers. In hindsight that had been an excellent idea as it provided a first level doorman who managed to rid themselves of the less persistent pests but at the time it had seemed only bizarre.

"Free?" Frank repeated feeling a bit like a parrot; he was also becoming a little concerned by the intensity with which she was staring at him. She had varying degrees of attention, most of the time she was rather distracted, always seeming as if she was only half listening but there were other times when she stared through to your very soul. Whenever she looked at Frank with that expression, with eyes that were greener than any human's, and that solemn expression that showed only thought he knew that he was going to be asked to do something that, while it might not necessarily be bad, could very well be life altering.

"Exactly! So you see, I have to invest while I can, it's a one night only sale so I got to move now." She said with that childish shark like grin that she took to wearing on occasion, "Normally I wouldn't bother you with something like this but I need an authoritative adult figure around with me as seven year olds are not old enough to wander alone unsupervised at night (or so they've told me thus far)."

"You mean, Halloween?" Frank asked and even as he did so he felt something inside him wither and die because he knew even before he started exactly where this was going, "Boss, I'm not sure if anyone's ever told you but vampires don't exactly do Halloween. It's well… it's just one of those things you avoid."

She only blinked at him and he knew that just as when she had first called him Frank there was no argument he could say that would change her mind.

The other employees had the general opinion that Frank lacked the ability to actually say no to Lily Riddle, that he was her whipping boy, condemned for all eternity to paperwork and other secretarial tediousness that no one in their right mind could possibly find interesting, and altogether seeming very emasculated.

The general term, which had first been introduced by Stefan and had been applied ever since, was whipped. Frank was whipped, Frank's real name wasn't even Frank and that was how whipped he was, that he let Lily Riddle walk in and change his name and had not once managed to get anyone to change it back.

Frank felt that this was somewhat of a misconception, not because he didn't somehow end up doing whatever Lily Riddle said without question, but because he didn't think that anyone in his position could manage any better.

You did not say no to Lily Riddle, the aurors found that out, the ministry had found that out, and Frank was certain that many others would find that out in years to come. If you said no you'd best be prepared for her to take some other measures and for those other measures to be cruel, precise, and oftentimes beyond your imagination.

Lily had once introduced various employees to the film The Terminator, and Frank had remembered thinking, as he had watched the steel being emerge from the fire with red piercing eyes, this is what she is at the heart of things. This unstoppable machine that keeps walking no matter the trial and cannot be stopped, while you could only watch as your heart plummeted into your stomach, thinking that this was the dreaded end.

Frank liked to think he was prioritizing, by being the yes-man he was avoiding the dreaded fate of the no-man.

Besides there was also the fact that usually, inexplicably, her ideas had more merit than any others even when they seemed alarming or otherwise bizarre. She had never failed them, never lead them close to failure. After sixty years he felt that she could almost ask him anything, anything at all, and that he would do it.

So that was how Frank found himself in Surrey at eight o clock p.m. on the thirty first. His only real consolation was that she hadn't demanded that he dress the part of the iconic vampire merely that he showed his reassuring adult presence so that the adults at the door would be more inclined to give her piles of sugar rather than call her dead parents.

(Although the idea of Lily Riddle possessing something as human and material as parents was one that was hard to process.)

It all seemed too suburban for Lily Riddle, they both were too lean, too rugged, altogether too dangerous looking to belong in a white-picket fence suburb such as the one they were in now. Against the cleanly cut grass, the white houses, he felt oddly dirty as if even by standing next to these places he was contaminating them. It didn't help that his clothes had almost fresh bloodstains from various meals as well as yellowed more aged stains that seemed almost more ominous than the fresh ones.

In Knockturn alley he would have turned a few heads, as any employee of Lily Riddle's always managed to do, but he would not have seemed out of place. However London's magical black market and ghetto was a far cry from suburbia.

The children, dressed in various costumes, each more flamboyant and misconstrued than the last gave him odd terrified glances while the adults looked at him with confusion as if trying to place a little girl with blood stains on her feet, a gun tucked into a holster on her belt, and a grown pale looking man who looked as if starred in a gritty action film into their neighborhood.

Lily Riddle, as always, seemed either not to notice or not to care because as soon as they had apparated in she was banging on a lavishly decorated door.

What was different about this one was not that there was one pumpkin, but rather that there was an abundance, each carved expertly with a different cat's face on it. Walking to the door he had the feeling that those carved orange eyes were somehow watching him and tracking his movements.

"This is Mrs. Figg's house, she has many cats, but she also feeds me on a regular basis so is likely to give out food tonight. I came here first originally, but she demanded I have an authority figure with me, she suggested the Dursleys but given the m-word well… I thought it best to avoid that conversation; if all goes well this will suffice."

The door opened to an older woman with a dazed expression wearing the type of outfit one would expect on an old woman. She smiled down at the little girl, her face crinkling, but even so there was a slight bit of confusion in her glance as if she wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"Eleanor, what a pleasant surprise, did you find your aunt and uncle?" She asked peering past Lily and frowning when neither aunt nor uncle appeared and there was only Frank.

Frank at this point was wondering just what sort of double life Lily Riddle lead during her absence, to go so far as having an aunt and an uncle, did she pose as an ordinary magicless human in suburban London and if so to what end? He couldn't picture it, Lily Riddle running around as a small child, consorting with humans and somehow passing any sort of standard they had no matter how low. Even when she stood still, when she didn't talk, when she merely looked at you they had to realize that something was off. The woman though, although there was wariness and tightness in her expression, did not seem too alarmed by the girl but rather seemed to accept her presence.

"I found Frank." Lily said motioning to him, "He's authoritative and adult enough."

Here the frown became even more pronounced, first taking him in, and then her eyes widened and it seemed that Mrs. Figg knew exactly what he was. For a moment he wondered if he was going to have the Halloween he had been attempting to avoid by staying in the office and watching television. Her hands clenched at the candy bowl she was holding and she looked for a moment as if she wanted nothing more to run inside the house and take Lily Riddle with her; which was the irony of ironies because taking Lily Riddle into your house was far more fatal than inviting in a vampire.

"I… I'm afraid I don't know… Frank, Ellie. Do your aunt and uncle know that… Frank is taking you?"

"Do my aunt and uncle know anything important?" Lily Riddle responded rhetorically before adding with a cross expression, "Look, you said come with an adult, so I came, with an adult, and in a costume, so I think I have passed the requirements.

"That wasn't… That's not what I meant, Ellie dear. " Here, another panicked glance at Frank, and she added, "Why don't you come inside and we can watch a movie together while I phone your relatives?"

Lily merely frowned, considering, and said, "I'll need the bowl of candy in return."

"… I'm sorry?"

"The candy, it's the only reason I'm here, and if you're going to prevent me from getting any I'm going to have to accept the entire bowl as compensation. That really is only fair."

"But this is for the other children, Ellie. And look at your feet, you're not in any condition to trick or treat. And you're hair too, that really isn't a good color for you…"

"I am Bruce Willis in Die Hard tonight, shoes would be an insult so gross that I cannot possibly begin to articulate it." Here she paused, surveying Mrs. Figg for what appeared to be a final time, and then stating, "I see I have no choice, very well Mrs. Figg, until I am allocated once again to your care and your cats while the Dursleys are doing things far beyond the station of an indentured servant I bid you adieu. Come Frank!"

And with that he and Lily were marching down the street with Mrs. Figg worriedly calling out behind them. Frank looked back over his shoulder, "Are you sure you simply want to leave? She seems rather concerned about leaving you in the hands of a stranger."

'Stranger' here in his head was replaced with 'blood sucking vampire' and he reminded himself that magicless humans were much different than they had been even before he was born, back when villages had been all too willing to find the priest and the large crucifixes to impale him with. As it was looking behind him he could only see the woman peering out the window as they walked out the street before darting away unseen into the house, looking panicked and determined all in the same instant.

Lily, as always though, didn't seem concerned about the possible oncoming violence or complications.

"No, Frank, for too many years I have sat out of this holiday. I mean Dudders did too, even when he screamed and cried about it, but that is no longer the point. The point is that if I am going to survive winter then I need a constant food supply, and Halloween is my chance to stock up, and this year I am not going to miss it!"

He thought about that for a moment, the passion with which she said it, her usual Lily Riddle assurance and hesitantly asked the question that had been growing on his mind the entire evening, "Yes, about that, what exactly is it you do when you're not in London?"

"Do?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at him with a puzzled expression, "I do what is required of me, what is required by the role I play, I do what I have to. I mean, really, that's all we can do."

"No, I mean, why are we in a muggle suburban neighborhood? One where it appears you are rather well-known by another name."

"Oh, that, I don't know I've been here as long as I could remember so… I guess this is just what I do?"

Frank looked at their surroundings, an ordinary suburb, the type that did not exist before the 1950's, and wondered how that could be possible. "But boss, you met me in 1937, how could you have possibly been here?"

She stopped at that, looked at him with wide blinking eyes, and then simply offered him a cheerful grin without any explanation and kept walking. It took quite a bit to terrify a vampire but he would fully admit that sometimes Lily Riddle's mere expressions would give him nightmares.

The next house was little better than the first, it involved the woman opening the door for Lily, taking one look at her and slamming it. This, he felt, was a much more sane reaction to having Lily Riddle on their doorstep than Mrs. Figg's had been.

The same reaction occurred for the next house, as well as the next, until finally it seemed that the whole neighborhood had slammed a door in her face.

An hour or so later they found themselves sitting in an empty playground, candy-less, and staring out at the other children who were still out wandering through the neighborhood holding the hands of their parents. He smiled briefly when he caught sight of a few little vampires toddling about in capes and fake teeth looking so very different than most of the vampires in London in this day and age.

"That was a complete waste of time." Lily finally stated with a rather flat expression.

"Well, yes, but I suppose it was slightly better than watching television." Frank responded, and somehow he felt he knew more about her. Not that he had not known her before but the mysteries surrounding her had deepened and he got a slight glimpse into what it was she did when she wasn't at work.

Perhaps she was human enough to feel the need to play at being an ordinary human girl, if only every once in a while, and he had not known that about her before.

"No it wasn't, television was far superior to this, I didn't even get candy from Mrs. Figg."

"Ah, yes, about Mrs. Figg, are you sure she's… well… She seemed rather concerned."

Lily waved that off, "Oh it's fine if she gets too weird I'll just alter her memories or something it's not a huge deal."

He idly wondered if this was the way she solved all her problems when death wasn't an option.

"It's better than some of the thirty firsts I've had." He stated to which she raised her eyebrows, "Last time I went out on Halloween I was pelted with holy wafers by angry peasants screaming, 'The power of Christ compels you."

"That sounds far more entertaining than this."

"It wasn't."

Perhaps the night could have ended there, with Frank and Lily Riddle sitting together on a children's playground, and he would have been satisfied to know a little more and feel as if he knew nothing at all. It was in a position to end, certainly, but there were many hours still to go and nocturnal by nature Frank did not feel as if things were slowing.

"You know, I've never been to the Leaky Cauldron before." He said, and it was true. The Leaky Cauldron, being on the barrier to the muggle and wizarding world, was one of those touristy overcrowded places that did not invite in him and his kind. In there you would only find the wizarding crowd, except on occasion when Hagrid the half-giant stepped in and sat like the glaring elephant in the room, and it was understood but not said that dark creatures such as vampires were not welcome.

That and alcohol and blood didn't truly mix, alcoholics were one of the easiest victims of course but there was something off tasting about them, that fermented sour bread taste that would stay in one's mouth for the rest of the night. Once in a while it was alright, but to be in a room that reeked of sour sweat and vomit wasn't exactly pleasant.

"…Well pub food wasn't exactly what I had in mind but it's certainly better than nothing at all."

It had been a whim more than anything, a desire to belay the moment where he trudged back to the office and started the film he had abandoned where it had left off, but never the less in a surreal moment he found himself in blood stained casual wear sitting across from an equally casual Lily Riddle in the overcrowded Leaky Cauldron eavesdropping on wizards reminiscing about the end of the war and other topics related to Ellie Potter Day. Lily herself was going through baskets of chicken wings, imported from the muggle world, as if there was no tomorrow seemingly perfectly content with the situation.

"Ellie Potter Day?" Lily had asked when Frank had first explained why it was so crowded in Diagon Alley and why there were children running around with sparklers, adults crying and hugging each other, and far too many people attempting to fit into one pub.

"Oh it's a yearly event, since 1982 that is, when the dark lord of the time died in a bizarre accident after attempting to dispose of Eleanor Potter the war ended without the majority of the population having to do anything about it. It was rather Deus Ex Machina if you will, and so because of that she has a national holiday in her honor which also commemorates the end of the war."

"Huh." She said blinking, taking in the information and storing it somewhere inside herself, perhaps for later use, "You don't look super happy about it."

He shrugged, "To be frank…" He paused at the unwitting pun shuddering slightly before gathering himself and continuing, "It really wasn't our conflict, and really never reached the point of open warfare, Grindlewald's march towards London was far more terrifying and destructive. Voldemort was fond of urban guerilla warfare; most of the action was terrorism, kidnappings, and blackmail… far more subtle than Grindlewald's campaigns. It was highly effective, and was quickly leading to the deterioration of the government, but it would be more accurate to label it as a failed revolution rather than a civil war."

She nodded at this as if this concurred with her own understanding of the events and motioned for him to continue while consuming spicy buffalo wings wiping her greasy fingers on her shirt without concern for the stains, "Unlike the werewolves we weren't actively involved, having maintained our policy of neutrality that we had during Grindlewald's invasion, so to me it all seems a bit small and isolated to Britain to get this excited about. That and Samhain always had a bit of a reputation even amongst wizards so throw into that a drunken celebration casting out the darkness and the violence and you get many impulsive wizards just itching to light something on fire."

As if to accentuate his point a red faced man crashed into their table, warbling slightly on stiff legs, before squinting at them, "Hey," He pointed a finger at Frank swaying on his feet and slurring dramatically, "Why ain't you drinkin'? It's a… celebration my good man… gotta hava drink…. Five years, five year anniversary…"

Frank raised pale hands in a sign of surrender, "I'm afraid I don't drink."

As it was the man was giving off fumes, making Frank feel vaguely ill, junkies had a smell to them as well with a range depending on the substance of choice but it was never as detracting as the smell of drunkenness.

"Whatta you, some sorta Slytherin?" The man asked, his eyes narrowing, perhaps recognizing that Frank wasn't one of his wizarding peers. Usually it went something like that, the first guess was Slytherin, and once they realized that Slytherin didn't cause the red eyes or the blood stains they moved onto the dark creature list.

"Hungarian, actually." He said, smiling thinly, although his accent had almost disappeared entirely over the years and he'd been much more involved in Britain's culture than he'd ever been in his native country.

"You lucky bastards didn't even get a taste of the war…" The man started and then pointed at Lily Riddle, "She your kid?"

"No, not at all." Frank thought, aside from the dark hair and the pale skin they didn't look at all related, and the thought of being at all related to Lily Riddle terrified him slightly. As it was Lily was watching this scene with more interest than was necessary, those large green eyes taking in every aspect and conveying nothing back, looking as distant and intent as she always did.

"You take some kid not your own to a bar… on Ellie Potter Day?..." The man slurred shaking his head as if to condemn Frank, "Should thank that, Ellie Potter… ya know… stopped him from gettin' to you… Romanians."

"Hungarians."

"'Ight, said that."

The man wobbled silently for a bit then, observing him and Lily with narrowed eyes, perhaps beginning to realize that Hungarian or not they still weren't fitting his usual wizarding requirement with the muggle styled stained clothing and their pale gaunt faces. Frank must have not seemed quite enthused enough because he spat on the floor by their table, "Ungrateful bastards."

He then staggered off to another table filled with a more appreciative audience, "Well, that was interesting."

"Wizards." He said with a sigh, he pitied Tom the barman, no doubt he'd have quite the clean up to do in the morning.

Lily Riddle observed a chicken wing critically before eating it, "I wouldn't say I'm ungrateful to Ellie Potter, but then how can one be grateful or ungrateful to an idea? It's a very odd concept."

He wasn't entirely certain what she meant by that, Ellie Potter being an idea rather than a person, perhaps she meant that Ellie Potter was hidden away somewhere by Albus Dumbledore and had not been seen since that famous night or perhaps she was speaking to something more integral. Again he had the feeling that he was learning more about Lily Riddle than he had ever known before, a peek into just what she thought and what she did when she was not wizarding Britain's only drug lord, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

It took a moment for him to gather his thoughts and approach the topic they had originally been discussing, namely, Ellie Potter.

"She cut off the head of a hydra and for the moment we have multiple heads bickering with each other in his place; the major causes of the conflict are still alive and well today just brushed under the rug where they're almost out of sight." Frank said with a shrug although to tell the truth he had never been sold on the Eleanor Potter explanation of Tom Riddle's defeat, it had seemed entirely too random, and with Lily Riddle's warnings from the past it seemed far more likely that she had disposed of him herself at an appointed date and time.

As of yet she had offered no explanation to what had happened, had allowed it to remain as the mysterious Ellie Potter instead, but he never the less felt that somehow it was her and only her who was behind it and no other.

"Well, as distant as it seems Elba isn't Saint Helena." She concurred, or rather appeared to concur, because Frank wasn't quite sure he understood those words. She often said things like that, where they appeared to make sense and not make sense in the same instant, as if he was missing some crucial reference. A reference that hid in her double life or perhaps even further, in some place that Frank could not even fathom.

"Hm." He said in a non-committed way preparing to add something to it but as usual on Halloween something happened to interrupt his night.

To be fair they had been tempting fate, although Lily Riddle's features were embellished amongst those who didn't wander into Knockturn Alley and actually meet with her face to face (she tended to be described as someone older with an ice like beauty one would expect from a dark lady) seeing a vampire and a dark haired girl sitting together was certain to catch someone's attention.

And so it was that from the pub someone shouted over the clamour, the tears, the cheering, and the general mood of Ellie Potter Day, "Is that Lily Riddle?!"

And the pub went silent, he and Lily Riddle both turned their heads to look at the group of dumbfounded and somewhat horrified wizards who were staring back at them.

"Happy Ellie Potter Day?" Lily said slowly, tasting the words on her tongue, as if to see if they were truly the ones she was looking for.

They didn't appear to work as the silence only stretched longer and a few of the patrons near the door began to trickle out of the pub and into the night with wary glances at her.

"Am I not allowed to join in on national holidays?" She asked him in a whisper as they continued to stare across at their audience.

"Not this one." He responded softly.

He didn't see where the first spell came from, nor the second, but soon enough there was a wave of them along with much shouting and screaming. Luckily they were too drunk to aim properly and those that did were met with Lily Riddle's shield and soon enough among the chaos and the fighting he and the girl were able to sneak back out of the pub and into the street.

"Well, I think we all learned something today." She summarized once they had walked back to the office again, she gave him one final look before departing, smiling slightly, "You know, it its own way, that was more fun than piles and piles of candy."

She looked the same as she always did, well, in a slightly different outfit and yet he felt that she seemed a little more solid to him. Not necessarily understandable but more solid, as if she was truly standing in front of him with depth and not floating off somewhere beyond his sight. Lily Riddle did not merely disappear when she left Riddle Incorporated, rather she went elsewhere, did other things and went by different names.

So he couldn't quite bring himself to regret spending Ellie Potter Day with his employer but nevertheless he had no overwhelming desire to experience it again.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Happy Ellie Potter DayHalloween/Samhain everybody, who knew I'd be doing a holiday special. Regardless this was for the 1000th review of Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus by Kurama's Foxy Rose who asked for a fic where,****"Lily decides she deserves a raise and decides to go trick-or-treating. Obviously, the Dursleys aren't going to take her and apparently, the neighborhood she chooses of a map for maximum effect thinks an adult should be with her. Who better than someone who doesn't even NEED a costume, like, say... Frank the Vampire." So here we are, because everyone likes Frank. **

**Thanks to readers, reviews are much appreciated.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**


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